Would you rather I change it to "Giant Dildo" or "Octupus Abuser"? Would that change the validity of what I'm saying?

Guys, stop enabling scammers by buying and selling bitcoins through Paypal (it's against their TOS anyway). You'll get scammed as everyone has, there are no exceptions.

There are only 2 outcomes:

• OP will buy your bitcoins, you'll send them, then you'll find that the Paypal was reversed later
• OP will sell you bitcoins, you'll send payment, and he won't send the coins

JUST STOP THE NONSENSE. PAYPAL AND BITCOIN DO NOT MIX.

Of course he's a scammer, and likely a sociopath.

• Responds to inquiries with overly dramatic, childish responses (e.g. "NOW MY REP IS RUINED"). How can an anonymous newbie account rep be "ruined" anyway?
• Pretends to be running out of time to create a sense of urgency
• Ignores inquiries and plays dumb, yet surprisingly knows exactly what he's talking about when it serves him
• Attacks or attempts to belittle those who call him out rather than provide evidence of intent

He's not looking to waste time giving answers guys, he's just looking for that perfect sucker to send coins first without thinking, and knowing this community, he'll have no difficulty finding one.

Asking people to PM him directly, ignoring requests for escrow while avoiding the question;

Beware, OP is likely a scammer.

Will you use escrow?

I suppose that won't be a problem. I hadn't intended on using BTC-e to trade anything but Litecoins, but I suppose I can make an exception and use this opportunity to try it out.

More reason to stop associating Bitcoin with any particular political agenda. "Bitcoin will rip down banks and governments!" 

You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

"Bitcoin won't screw you over like Paypal does."

It will screw you over by losing 70% of it's value in 6 hours because MtGox gets DDoSed 

Gone, replaced by something better that doesn't require constant hashing/wasted energy and ASIC computers to keep free. The smartest people in the world are not yet even involved in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is leading the way, but I doubt it'll be the end all solution.

I agree, I'm skeptical of the current implementation by NewCoin, and I am concerned with the level of adoption and implementation necessary for a completely trustworthy Ripple network. That said, the concept of IOUs are fine. I make and receive IOUs regularly, and they are handled mostly on time with gratuity. If Ripple handled that for me all electronically, that'd be flippin' awesome! Maybe it'd need to be done in circles like G+ has "friend circles". As a matter of fact, Google will more than likely add that ability sooner or later.

What bothers me right now is that, like you said, it is highly centralized, requires major exchanges (same as bitcoin) and basically if the IOU system were used at this moment, I'm pretty sure everyone and their mom would be scammed to hell and back. Some random dude on these forums PMed me the other day with "hey! add me on Ripple buddy!". That shit is going to be more devastating than bitcoin wallets deleted because it will affect relationships and reputation. It's not an easy problem to fix though because like Bitcoin, people just aren't used to being responsible with their money, much less PGP signing, encryption, and the idea of "no chargebacks when you give your money to a scammer". That's gotta change first, and where Bitcoin tries to solve that problem (and fails, because bitcoin can't fix the social engineering side of a scam, e.g. fake ASIC websites that accept BTC, etc), Ripple would simply organize debt to make it much easier to settle it.

With Ripple, no one would need to have a bank anymore, ever. No need for bitcoin wallets either. I don't think of it as a question of not protecting someone's belongings or investments, but of opening more diverse opportunities to collect on them.

I'd rather know my brother was giving me either a cup of sugar or something of equal value and that I could trust him to do so when he is able (or when I need it most), than to trust an insanely volatile speculative internet commodity to retain any value whatsoever. No, I'm not against Bitcoin, I love it! I'm against Bitcoin as a currency though. It will make even less sense the more bloated the blockchain and higher the fees.

When your brother borrows a cup of sugar and doesn't give it back on time, do you have him arrested? Society doesn't work like this, and it has nothing to do with everyone being "smooth talkers". As for the argument of bitcoin having "absolute value" because it's "mathematically backed", etc, the "value" of bitcoins fluctuates insanely at the whim of centralized exchanges and manipulators.

Back on topic, if your brother borrows a cup of sugar and you want a soda pop instead of the sugar, can't your brother give you that instead and just agree it has the same value? Why make your brother go to the store when you don't even need the sugar in the first place? That's not "mathematically exact", but if you both agree it to be of the same value, isn't that a more sociable solution?

The average person is not a cruel banker, and some of us enjoy finding solutions in an effort to foster the growth of opportunities. Some of us are extremely generous in repaying debts out of thankfulness to those who extended it (an absolute mathematical system would deny any generosity). The reason we hate banks right now is because they're cold, cruel, and talk smooth. I agree. Is it really necessary to hate your brother for not having sugar, when a network can be created (Ripple) that would allow you to get sugar from your neighbor because your neighbor owed your brother something of equal value too?

I guess I too can see how the mathematical finality of Bitcoin would appeal to people who are accustomed to living alone, hiding from social situations and making sure their action figure collection is still not opened. For the rest of us? Ripple seems to be a more natural system of payments and an ingenious way to organize IOUs in a very unpredictable world, one run by humans who accidentally delete their bitcoin wallets all the time.

I agree. If Ripple can be made decentralized like Bitcoin, without any thought of ridiculous hyped up XRP or BTC "prices", then it would be a fair system for everyone and any debt could be paid by anyone, anywhere by any negotiable means necessary. That is the future I believe, not demanding someone use your protocol. We already have banks for that.

Ripple deals with money as a human concept, the way it should be. Bitcoin deals with money as a mathematical *exact* concept the way bankers think. If you're a math nerd, you'll love Bitcoin. If you're a normal human being who wants to use something on a regular basis, you'll love Ripple. They are different concepts, but not mutually exclusive.

I really hate that Ripple will take so long to get going (there is a huge awkward factor to it because friends and colleagues don't *usually* keep tabs on their microloans to each other so much as it creates social issues), but once it does get going, I don't think there will be a place for Bitcoin any longer to be honest. Bitcoin is slow, bulky and acts more like a stock or commodity. Ripple seems to work to solve everyday issues, not get early adopters rich; that fact alone makes many bitcoiners hate it. "How am I supposed to get 3000% profts from Ripple?"  


Disclaimer: I have no comment on the current implementation of Ripple by OpenCoin, still watching and learning. Anything that allows Open Transactions to be done by laymen should be looked into in my book.

I enjoy watching Alex Jones for like 5 minutes because everything he says makes me actually think, but then (like reading this forum) it always goes way overboard and makes me wonder if the world is really all as bad as it sounds and if human beings really are constantly "out to get me". I learn towards the explanation that some people are just jealous and unable to cope with not being in control of everything (e.g. they wish *they* were the 1% and don't actually care about helping the 99%, just getting the current 1% out and themselves in). Sometimes I feel many of the more influential mouthpieces in Bitcoin are just involved to help create an exclusive boys club where they can keep others out.

No girls allowed.

I think the term you're looking for is "manipulate", and I could be wrong but I think that's exactly the thing many people moved to Bitcoin instead to avoid.

All this talk of being "backed by math" and "unhackable" doesn't matter when the social influence inside bitcoin controls everything. I feel the good aspects are wasted on the current "regime" of users and wannabe leaders and bitcoin has not at all reached its potential to be actually free. Can't wait until the whole world starts using it so we can get rid of this early age of Bitcoin. When that happens, it doesn't need to seek to "replace" anything, it just needs to function.

Lol. They didn't even bother changing their color scheme.

It is my belief that 10 people on this forum hold a combined 10,000,000 BTC. It could be seen as "not fair" (to a socialist) because it creates the same system we're trying to get away from in many ways (the overly wealthy 1%), but cause != effect. They're rich because they did it before you. You can still get rich with the remaining 10,000,000 BTC.

As for "control" in the sense of protocol and procedures, it very much is under the influence (if not outright control) of literally 5 dudes.

The way I see it, things are illegal because religion still controls politics (all wars are religious in nature). There is however a common view that life should exist to advance our kind, and sitting around doing drugs doesn't seem to accomplish that. When the average person reads what dank writes, it only strengthens their opinion against drugs.

I'm pretty green on economics, can someone explain to me why having the price of Bitcoin built into it would be a bad idea? I mean, couldn't it be something that miners "vote" on (just as they vote on everything else)? That for some reasons seems the most democratic decentralized option.